The future of cycling is here?!
From reddit post: Awesome invention adds a flywheel to a bicycle to store
kinetic energy, 'storing' it and then using it's energy to help Boost your speed and momentum on a bike
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1hsdqm/awesome_invention_adds_a_fl
ywheel_to_a_bicycle_to/

New York Engineering Grad Brings Hybrid Technology to Bike Design
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A 22-year old college graduate in New York has adapted hybrid car
technology to a bicycle. He uses a fly-wheel to store energy generated by
the brakes for use when the riding gets tough.
Feeling the need for speed? If you're riding Maxwell von Stein's bicycle,
you can get to your destination in a flash, without having to work up a
sweat.
The engineering student's fly-wheel bicycle employs the same energy
alternating principles as a hybrid car.
But rather than a battery, it uses a fly-wheel to transfer and store
kinetic energy, which gives the bike a Boost in speed.
To build the technology, he began with a 15 pound, cast iron fly-wheel
taken from a car engine.
He mounted the fly-wheel in the center of the bike frame, and attached it
to the rear wheel through a continuously variable transmission.
[Maxwell von Stein, Inventor of the Fly-wheel Bicycle]:
"That transmission controls how energy is distributed between the bike and
the fly-wheel. When you want to slow down you twist the transmission, it's
a twist shift on the right handle bar. ... By shifting that ratio, you
increase the speed of the flywheel and decrease the speed of the bike. Now
the flywheel is spinning really quickly, you've got energy stored there and
when you need to accelerate you shift the transmission in the opposite
direction for a Boost in speed."
Von Stein says he likes to think of the process as charging the flywheel
and Boosting the bike.
While his self-described "contraption" has made biking easier, von Stein
says his goal isn't to re-invent the bicycle.
He is hoping to use the two-wheel experiment as a basis for developing a
fly-wheel kinetic energy system for cars.
He believes the system is a good alternative to battery-operated hybrid
systems because it is lighter and can be packaged more easily.
[Maxwell von Stein, Inventor of the Fly-wheel Bicycle]:
"Hybrids are really heavy. In order to get a battery with the capacity to
store enough energy to move the car it's got to be pretty heavy. Takes up a
lot of room also."
Several European car companies are already experimenting with fly-wheel
technology, and von Stein estimates that cars with regenerative braking
systems could hit the market by 2013.